"Young Master Lucien, it's been a long time... I see you still haven't gotten over the outcome of our honorable duel," Qingyi replied.

Despite the respectful tone in his voice, his lips curled in contempt.

"Honorable duel? You used disgusting tactics to defeat me, and you still claim that it was honorable? Do you know how much I suffered to recover from that?"

"Uh? Come on..." Qingyi laughed, his purple eyes filled with a soft glow as strands of draconic Qi flooded his eyeballs. "It couldn't have been that bad, right?"

The moment his eyes focused between Lucien's legs, watching the mana flow through his body, he realized it and then fell silent.

He could see the strands of mana running through Lucien's entire body, from his skin to his bones, but there was something strange. Something was missing.

'Why is there only one?' Qingyi wondered, and soon the realization came.

Lucien now had only one ball.

Noticing Qingyi's strange gaze and smile, Lucien immediately crossed his legs.

"You bastard, you know what you've done!" Lucien roared, looking at the Bishop. "Your Holiness, allow me to get rid of him! I am ready to defeat him now! He does not deserve the light of Auranys!"

The Bishop heard the words but did not respond immediately.

Aeryn, who was watching everything with a confused look, soon realized something, her face filling with subtle amusement.

"Oh... that was unnecessarily cruel," she whispered softly.

"Exactly!" Lucien roared again.

"See, Your Holiness? Lady Aeryn agrees with me! Allow me to fight him."

"That was a compliment," Aeryn said.

For the first time in the many months Lucien had known the elven princess, she let a laugh escape her lips.

It was short, low, and soft, but enough to completely melt Lucien's heart.

Ignoring him completely, Aeryn simply sat down on a bench.

Her beautiful green eyes focused on Qingyi, her left hand rising to her hair to brush away a strand of golden hair that covered her long, pointed ears.

Her pale, slightly sweaty skin seemed to glow in the morning sun as her slender, shapely legs crossed.

She looked at the Bishop.

"My mission is complete, and I have already brought Qingyi here. I believe I am free to go, correct?" she asked.

"Yes, Your Highness," the Bishop finally replied, a tired sigh escaping his lips as his eyes focused on Qingyi again.

"You must be Long Qingyi. I received a rather interesting letter from the Bishop of the Kingdom of Valemont, and an even more interesting one from a local nun. Tell me, what do you have against Lucien?"

"Nothing," Qingyi shook his head, surprised that this man already knew of his existence.

Well, he wasn't exactly laying low, and a man like that would naturally have a wide intelligence network.

"We exchanged a few blows some time ago, but nothing more than that."

"Hm..." The Bishop scratched his chin.

"The prophecy said that regardless of who it was, if they were the one who rescued and was accepted by the Golden Convergence Pendant, they would be worthy of becoming one of the five heroes who would purge the evil of this generation and receive the blessing of Auranys...

Tell me, is this what you desire?"

"Yes," Qingyi replied short and to the point.

The Bishop just looked at Lucien again.

"You may fight Qingyi. Once, in a single combat. After that, you must erase all bitterness from your heart and follow nothing but Auranys."

Lucien gritted his teeth at those words, gripping the hilt of his sword even tighter. He took a step forward and then, finally, released his golden holy power.

During this time, he had trained like a madman, using the blessing he had received from Auranys to form one ring after another. Now, he was on the ninth ring.

His power had increased so much because of that blessing; how could Qingyi compare?

"No tricks, no magic, just brute force," Lucien said, throwing his sword to the ground.

He wanted to beat Qingyi with his bare hands, wanted to crush him like an insect.

Fortunately, of all the improvements he had made, his body was the most significant, undergoing the most grueling tempering that a mana-using warrior could endure.

If he could shape steel with his bare hands, why couldn't he break Qingyi's spine?

The handsome young man just stared at Lucien for a moment, his eyes turning to Aeryn, or more specifically, to the figure that appeared beside her.

The elven beauty trembled softly, a pair of delicate hands falling on her shoulders, two huge, soft twin mounds pressing against the high elf's delicate back.

A beautiful, delicate face appeared above Aeryn's shoulders, blue hair cascading down, joining the elf's golden hair.

Behind this figure, her body continued to emerge from a spatial fold, covered in an elegant blue dress. The fabric ran from her neckline to her waist, no less slender than Aeryn's, and then down to her protruding hips and thick, soft thighs.

Her fair, creamy skin was revealed by vertical slits in her dress, white stockings rising to the middle of her thighs, squeezing the soft flesh and forcing it to spill out into a plump, pillowy mound.

"So, elf sister... which one do you think will win?" she asked, adjusting her hat on her head, her red lips parting in a wide smile.

"I'm not your sister, Sapphire," Aeryn replied, blushing softly and eliciting a laugh from the blue-haired beauty.

"Oh... so cold and cruel..." Sapphire murmured in response to Aeryn, her red lips curving into a soft smile.

She sat down next to the elf, watching the exchange with interest.

Qingyi watched the two for a brief moment.

Margareth had told him about the three heroines. Aeryn was one of them, a light and quick swordswoman, while Lucien was a powerful tank.

That woman, Sapphire, had just used a space spell and, naturally, could only be the mage of that group.

One of the most prestigious magicians of the young generation on the continent and the heir to the Blue Tower, one of the three great towers of magicians.

Qingyi's purple, beautiful, and piercing eyes met Sapphire, her eyes no different from a beautiful, polished jewel.

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